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Questioner

What are Oldbloods?

Brandon Sanderson

Oldbloods? Oldbloods are the, um... Lon-- Years ago, Alethkar was ruled by a different group of people. A different, like, dynasty. And it's been overturned, and it's been a long enough time that they're not really a threat. But to acknowledge them, and Oldblood-- they wear the tattoo. It means, "We are-- We used to rule this place." And so, it's just-- It's a lineage of people and a dynasty that used to be the kings of Alethkar.

Titan_Arum

In TWoK, Dalinar mentions that back home Reshi border encroachments grow increasingly bold...according to the map of Roshar, no Reshi islands are directly adjacent to Alethkar. Is this encroachment simply due to Tai-na migrating into Alethi waters and skirmishing with Alethi boats? Or are the Reshi actually sending raiding parties to the mainland?

Brandon Sanderson

The Alethi have a long history of skirmishing with the Reshi islands just to the north and northeast of Alethkar. (And at various points, they've just considered Herdaz to be an Alethi province.) The fertile fishing up there makes for some coveted seas.

reddidaccount1

In Sanderson's most recent lecture (50:25 in) to his BYU Writing Class, he mentions that Alethkar natives resemble Asians. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, especially since I always imagined the Shin as the "Asians" of that world.

Brandon Sanderson

It's a little more complicated than I might have made it seem. Alethkar natives other than the Shin have the epicanthic fold, but the Alethi wouldn't look strictly Asian to you--they'd look like a race that you can't define, as we don't have them on earth. I use half-Asian/half-arab or half-asian/half-Polynesian models as my guide some of the time, but Alethi are going to have a tanner skin than some of those.

Some Horneaters might look Caucasian to you--but then, most will not. They'll seem like something alien, and not all of them have light skin; they tend to walk a spectrum between pale and coppery. Reshi and Herdazians will look closest to something like an indigenous Bolivian.

Shin would look the closest to Caucasian to you, but again, they're not an Earth ethnicity. So you might not be able to place them either.

A lot of the fanart has done a good job with this, and if you search through it, it might help you get an idea.

Questioner

What kind of embroidery is it [on Alethi women's clothing]? Is it like flowers, patterns?

Brandon Sanderson

No no, it is a lot of things but the Alethi's don't do the flower thing as much... It's not really an Alethi thing, floral patterns. So you are seeing a lot of designs and hatchings. They may look a little Arabic to you. Or the glyphs and things like that you will see worked in but very stylized.

Questioner

I've been recently introduced to you as an author, and I heard "lighteyed" and "darkeyed." What is that?

Brandon Sanderson

So, in The Stormlight Archive, their ethnic divisions in one of the cultures is by eye color. It traces back to when there was an ancient magic that eye color was related to, and in the modern culture, if you have lighteyes (like you), that's nobility. If you have Darkeyes (like you), you are not noble, you are... you know. So, instead of dividing by skin color or by nationality, they are much more interested in eye color. But that's only one of the cultures, that's a big important one.

Questioner

What's the penalty for killing a highprince, like Adolin did to Sadeas?

Brandon Sanderson

Official law is kind of confusing, because before the unification of Alethkar back into a kingdom, killing a highprince was like killing the monarch of another country. So if you did it on the field of battle it's fine. If you assassinate them it's considered a bad-- a mark of dishonor. But, what's gonna happen? I mean, your own people are gonna probably be like, "Okay, you killed the other highprince. You shouldn't have done that." But, you know... the enemy... *laughing* But now that there's a kingdom, those sort of laws are different. So it's going to cause a legal conundrum. Does that make sense?